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Translation: Chinese “Dolce Vita” on Costa Cruisehttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/06/translation-chinese-dolce-vita-on-costa-cruise/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/06/translation-chinese-dolce-vita-on-costa-cruise/#commentsFri, 12 Jun 2015 01:33:09 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=184235Cruising has come to China, and international ocean liners are hoping to get in early on the burgeoning market. The capsizing of the Oriental Star in the Yangtze adds to evergreen fears about the safety of domestic goods and services—but the tragedy also highlights the phenomenon of pleasure trips by the newly rich. Costa Crociere, owned by Carnival, has been operating in China since 2006, but only a handful of Chinese have experienced this “floating symbol of the leisure-industrial complex,” as Christopher Beam calls it in a Bloomberg story about a Costa cruise he took from Shanghai to Japan in February.

The first cruise to circumnavigate the globe from China set sail from Shanghai in March. Li Meiling, a senior editor for the online news site Jiemian, spent a week with passengers on the Atlantica, observing their interactions onboard and ashore from Athens to Barcelona. CDT has translated her recounting of the experience for Jiemian’s narrative reporting series NoonStory.

Cruising the World: 600 Chinese Taste “La Dolce Vita”

Costa Atlantica is the first round-the-world cruise to set sail from China. Some predict that China will be the world’s second-biggest market for ocean liners by 2017.

Li Meiling

I

It’s dusk on the Mediterranean. As the sky gradually darkens, the Costa Atlantica is docked at the port of Piraeus, in the southwest corner of Athens. The lights of the ship burn brightly against the sky blue sea.

The ship is a 12-story colossus. On board are more than 600 Chinese tourists in the midst of a 86-day round-the-world cruise. The trip began at Shanghai’s Wusongkou International Cruise Terminal on March 1, and they have since travelled through Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, the Maldives, Cairo, and the Suez Canal. The ship is now about to begin the pinnacle of its journey, a cruise through The Mediterranean. This week, they will tour the birthplace of western civilization: Greece and Rome.

On March 28, I hurriedly take a cab from my hotel to the port and pass through security. The first time I see any of the ship’s Chinese passengers is at a duty-free shop on the pier. At that moment, these Chinese passengers, who have been at sea for nearly a month, are excitedly picking through Grecian olive oil and soap. One middle-aged Chinese woman with a thick accent, in order to make sure she is getting the absolute best price per quantity possible, is speedily crunching numbers on her cell phone calculator, noting the prices for all of the different olive oils on the shelf.

At 11 p.m., the ship, which was scheduled to depart at 10, remained motionless. An ashen man from Hong Kong quickly walks from the stairwell to the reception desk on the second deck. He yells at the receptionist in urgent Cantonese, “I want to get off! This ship isn’t safe! Give me back my passport!”

It appears something is wrong with the ship. A few other Chinese tourists have already made similar visits to the reception desk. “Throw the captain into the sea!” screams one passenger. Rumors and gossip are inevitable on such long journeys. A few passengers quietly inform me that the boat isn’t moving because “someone ran! Illegal entry.” And the number of people who “illegally entered” the current port country rises from one to three.

“The Chinese are too anxious,” says Liao Yaozong, shaking his head. At about 11:30, Liao grabs me to chat with him in La Dolce Vita Atrium. He can’t sleep.

La Dolce Vita Atrium is one of the most attractive locations on the ship. The hall’s lofty ceiling transcends ten decks. From the bar you can look all the way up to the Atlantic Club. On one side of the hall stand three pillar chandeliers, sculpted from Italian Murano glass. The hall is also equipped with three transparent elevators. The sights whisk you away to daydreams of the carnival scenes of Roman high society dance parties in Fellini’s film “La Dolce Vita.”

Liao Yaozong is a 51-year-old from Tianjin. He graduated from the Nankai University Department of Philosophy, and he’s now a real estate tycoon. During the first few days of the cruise, a number of Chinese passengers got into recurring spats over taking pictures at the entrance to the Tiziano Restaurant, sometimes even coming to blows. “What are you so upset about? We still have three months!” Liao told them at the time. “Anyone who can take part in this cruise is surely someone who longs for civility. Anyone able to board this ship has already contributed greatly to civilization.”

Liao is taking his wife and father with him on this trip. “The price for tickets for the three of us is like throwing a house into the ocean.” The market price for a ticket is about RMB 200,000 ($32,271). But Costa gave them a discount, bringing the price down to around RMB 150,000 ($24,203) per ticket.

One of the world’s slowest modes of travel, a round-the-world cruise is costlier and more time-consuming than a flight. Before embarking from Wusongkou, Costa held a press conference about the voyage, which Liao Yaozong attended. A foreign reporter asked him: Why choose to cruise? His answer was a poetic one. “The sky is not where humankind can relax. Humankind should be close to the sea.”

II

When you first board this ship, you might feel like you’ve arrived in a little town somewhere in Europe. The Chinese on board are gentlemanly and polite. Even though they are complete strangers, they nod their heads to each other in the elevator like Westerners, and even proactively greet you with a “hello” in Chinese and a “morning” in English. Some of the men even go as far as to hold open the elevator doors for women they don’t know.

But when they boarded on March 1, being greeted by strangers made the Chinese tourists uncomfortable and nervous. To prepare for their voyage into the unknown, some brought washing machines, hotplates, juicers, and wash basins. Some brought 15 kilos of Maotai, and one girl brought several suitcases filled with snacks. Another person prepared over 100 movie posters and stamps related to their upcoming ports of call, and some of the older people secretly brought on big bottles of mineral water to save their kids money.

Now that over a month has passed, the guests have enjoyed a spectacular pool party, a Latin dance party, an “Arabian Night,” a 70s party, and even a classic Western musical in the Caruso Theatre. They seem to be getting used to, even accepting, the Western way of socializing.

The inspiration for the design of the Costa Atlantica comes from the Italian director Federico Fellini. It is a mix of dreamscapes and Baroque art, and every floor is named after a classic Fellini film. Going from the first floor to the twelfth, they are: Luci Del Varietà, La Dolce Vita, La Strada, Roma, I Clowns, Amarcord, Intervista, 8½, Ginger & Fred, E La Nave Va, and La Voce Della Luna.

Even though Costa only sold 600 tickets, this vessel has the capacity for 2,680 passengers. Still, Costa is satisfied. Today one of Europe’s largest cruise liners, Costa was founded in 1854. In the beginning they shipped cloth and olive oil between Genoa and other Mediterranean ports. Now they’re going after the mainland Chinese market, which is why they’ve spent nearly three years organizing this single trip.

The cruise industry in China is still relatively small. Around 700,000 Chinese passengers took cruises in 2014, whereas in America and Europe the numbers of passengers reached ten million and seven million, respectively. But in China this number has increased by 79% over the past two years. Some predict that China will become the second largest cruise ship market in the world before 2017, and that eventually it will overtake the U.S. as the largest.

When the first cruise ship arrived in Tianjin seven or eight years ago, all the locals crowded around to enjoy the spectacle. Nobody had ever seen a ship so large before. Liao Yaozong was in the crowd that day. A vice president of the Chinese real estate company Golden Era, Liao recalled, “When I saw it I thought to myself, someday I have to take my dad for a trip on a ship that big.”

“For Chinese people, cruises now are like Western-style button up shirts were back in the 80s—expensive, so not many people wore them, but you knew that one day you’d have to buy one,” Liao continued. “It’s just like how Chinese people only want to buy Mercedes and Porsches. Even if other cars are more expensive they won’t buy them, because people don’t know what they are, so nobody will know that you’re rich.”

Liao Yaozong is among the first generation of Chinese real estate investors. Back in the 90s, only a few years out of college, Liao wanted to give himself a wedding that would impress his guests. To his parents’ generation, young people back then were all a bunch of “petty speculators,” coming up from the south to resell clothes, electronics, melons, fruit, and other things to make money. But Liao’s father, who came from a military background, thought this kind of work was below his son. So Liao went into real estate instead.

But China’s real estate market has just plateaued, and Liao is worried. He’s afraid that the cost of government demolitions is going down, meaning that real estate prices will be going down, too. The cost of land, steel and other materials, and labor are all rising, and when you add in inflation, the market is weak right now. This has held back the rate of development further and made it increasingly difficult to do business.

Especially so during the six-day voyage to Athens on the open sea. “There’s nothing else to do on board. How can I help worrying about my business?” Liao continues, “These past three years I’ve basically used up all of the money I made the three years before that.”

Costa has organized all sorts of activities for their Chinese passengers: dance lessons, art classes, Italian classes, folk performances, pool parties, magic shows, and more. There are cards and board games, an arcade, and karaoke to pass the time. If that’s not enough, the ship’s cabins have been divided up into 50 “neighborhoods” with the head of each putting on dance competitions, mahjong matches, ping-pong face offs, and talent shows.

Full of energy and enthusiasm, Chinese aunties are the main fighting force behind these activities. They’ve succeeded at moving their public dances to the cruise ship. Every night on the dance floor of La Dolce Vita they perform “Little Apple,” and every time the band asks for requests they all shout, “Play ‘Little Apple’!!!” After two weeks, Liao Yaozong has had it. He goes up to the front desk to tell the clerk, “You can’t play ‘Little Apple’ anymore. I can’t take it anymore. ” It’s his only complaint during the whole trip.

Actually, there is one other thing getting on Liao’s nerves. In the dining hall on the ninth floor, there is a Chinese passenger with a patch of ringworm on his scalp. It must really itch, because sometimes while they are eating he uses a fork to scratch his head. It makes Liao and his fellow passengers rather uncomfortable.

On this massive vessel, more than half of the passengers are over 70. The oldest is 88 and the youngest is 12 months. They’ve worked in some of the most eye-catching professions in China: retired employees of state-owned enterprises, owners of private companies, doctors, poets, photographers, authors, entrepreneurs, artists, singers, antique collectors, financiers, famous musicians, models. Businessmen make up the majority, and the majority of those work in real estate.

“There are too many petty people on this boat,” Liao says with contempt. “A lot of them just want to tack on the title of ‘global.'” He leans over the table and narrows his eyes, assessing the ship. It’s almost midnight, and the hall is empty. The boat hasn’t set sail yet, and it rocks gently, like a cradle, with the waves at the dock.

III

It’s already 9:00 a.m. when I wake on our second day. I open the curtains to see that the boat is still docked in Athens. Voices bounce around the second-floor lounge in La Dolce Vita, while the couch in the lobby overflows with people. The mood is a little tense. Eight attendants with stiff backs and nervous expressions stand at the reception desk, telling the rush of passengers that the ship is having “technical difficulties.”

“What kind of ‘technical difficulties?’ Tell me straight!” an older gentleman says, shaking his finger almost close enough to hit the nose of a Chinese attendant. The young lady instantly turns red, and a fine bead of sweat pools on the tip of her nose. There are 833 staff members on the boat from 29 different countries, including 160 from China. Several Italians in staff uniforms are standing by the bar anxiously discussing something.

To assuage the passengers, Costa has arranged an on-shore tour for the Chinese passengers. At 10:30 a.m., the guests get on a bus from the dock to downtown Athens.

Since this plan is spur of the moment, the young tour guide doesn’t speak very good English and is rather underprepared, and she is ill at ease the entire trip. On the bus, a male Chinese tourist has a printed guide and keeps interrupting her to correct her small mistakes.

“Stop! Stop! Stop!” a short-haired, middle-aged woman from Shanghai suddenly stands up and cuts off the guide, then says to everyone else, “The tour guide is sloppy! She hasn’t translated everything.” She walks to the front of the bus, points one finger at the local guide and another at the young Chinese guide and says, “Like this. You say one sentence, and you translate one sentence.”

A bit embarrassed, the young girl nervously translates “basketball court” as “football stadium,” and just as before the male Chinese tourist loudly corrects her. “Wrong again!” The bus bursts into laughter, and even though it is at the expense of the man, the young lady becomes even more embarrassed, subconsciously shrinking back a step and hiding her face behind a seat back so the passengers can’t see her face.

At the foot of the Acropolis, a different group of Chinese people are stumped by a simple math problem.

Liao Yaozong chose to travel unguided, and after disembarking ran into a group of five fellow Chinese passengers. The six of them cram into a taxi to go sightseeing, coming to 70 euros ($79) altogether, or 12 euros ($13.50) a person. Just before they take off, another aunty from the cruise decides to join, so now they are seven. The driver raises the price to 80 euros ($90).

Here’s the problem: how much is each person supposed to pay? Eighty euros divided by seven comes to 11.4 euros ($12.80), right? Wrong. The auntie comes to a different solution. She figures, since it was originally 70 euros for six people (12 euros per person), you now need to simply add another person, but not increase the cost per person. The price increased by ten euros, so she’ll pay ten, and everyone else can continue paying their 12 each.

There are two solutions to this. The aunty is only 1.4 euros short of her assumed responsibility—less than RMB 10 ($1.60)—but the seven spent half an hour solving this math problem. In the end, Liao Yaozong and the others concede.

Upon returning to the ship at nightfall, I receive a notice in my room: the ship had been fixed, and in the morning we’ll be leaving for Santorini. The little tempest has finally blown away.

IV

Onboard, you frequently hear conversations such as these: “The loose diamonds we bought in New York were so cheap!…” “My family has quite a few Omega wristwatches. Just taking one in to get fixed costs a hefty penny…” “Originally we wanted to bring a nanny onboard with us…”

There’s a constant, unspoken competition going on among all the “new money,” like in the film “Titanic.” Who’s bar tab is the highest? Who gambled the biggest at the casino? Who has a Leica camera? Who is staying in the most luxurious terrace suite with the panoramic ocean view? Who bought which luxury item onshore today? It’s as if there is an invisible scoreboard. Which miserable wretch will be wiped off the board today?

The RMB 150,000 ($24,165) each person paid for the cruise is merely their ticket onboard. Everything else they consume is extra, including any onshore excursions, bar tabs, Internet service, as well as the cafe, the duty-free shop, the casino, the exercise facilities and spa, and so on.

Though they are always eager to spend competitively, the Chinese passengers seem just as committed to thrift. The cruise offers several wifi packages. The Chinese all quickly choose the cheapest package, around $100. In order to conserve their data usage, many are willing to wait to use the Internet until the ship pulls into port.

The bottled water in the rooms cost about $5 each, so Chinese guests generally bring free water from the buffet back to their room, or else come up with ways to bring back water from onshore trips. The cruise held a wine tasting for about $15, and hardly anyone went. But every time there is a free activity, it’s filled to the brim. If you forget your cell phone or umbrella while watching a show in the Caruso Theater, you will never see anyone bring it to reception.

Most complaints are about bad food and poor service. The reception desk at La Dolce Vita has become the staging ground for conflict.

But there was a complaint that surpassed all these. Twenty-four hours ago, an 80-year-old retired teacher from Shanghai, Mr. Yan, rushed from his room to the reception desk in righteous indignation. What upset him was that the TV on board the ship had broadcast a foreign talk show which attacked the Chinese system of government and the state of affairs.

“I won’t stand for it!” Mr. Yan and his wife tell me as they pull me into Caffe Florian on the third floor. “What qualifies them to criticize China? We now have the money to tour the world. Isn’t that because China’s economy is prospering, and the motherland is strong?” Mr. Yan was agitated, his voice rising.

The real Caffe Florian opened in 1720 in Venice’s Piazza San Marco. It is said that Hemingway once lingered there. “Quiet, quiet.” Mr. Yan’s wife, 76 years old, tugs at the hem of her clothes. She warns her husband, “Speak quietly in public places. Don’t disturb others.”

Mr. Yan allies with a few old comrades and complains to reception several times. “China can’t be bullied by foreigners,” he says. A few hours later, the program is finally taken off the air. “We won!” Mr. Yan and his comrades shake hands excitedly and celebrate in the hallway.

After Mr. Yan and his wife retired, they always longed for travel. They are now seasoned cruise aficionados. They can compare at leisure the merits of Princess and Costa cruises, down to the finest detail.

Mr. Yan and his wife visited Hong Kong in 1998, the year after the city was returned to China. They found Victoria Harbor ablaze with light, a world utterly apart from their own. But when the cruise passed through Hong Kong this time, Mr. Yan had a new experience. “Victoria Harbor isn’t much, you know. It looks so small. Our Bund in Shanghai is certainly not inferior.”

Mr. Yan seeks out a woman from Hong Kong who owns a noodle shop. “What will you do when you get back to Hong Kong? Do you support Occupy Central?” he asks. “I don’t,” she replies. “The kids are listening to other people and going out to stir things up. I’m worried to death. The restaurant has also suffered—we’re at the brink of closing down.” Mr. Yan is gratified by this response.

In 2006, limited by salaries and vacation allowances, there weren’t many Chinese traveling abroad. Mr. Yan was even mistaken for Japanese by the staff at a hotel in Paris. In 2012, when Mr. Yan first applied for a visa to take a cruise, the process was exceedingly strict and cumbersome. Not only did he have to produce his marriage certificate, he had to have it notarized. At that time, China didn’t have any long-distance cruises. Mr. Yan and his wife had no choice but to fly to Europe and the U.S. to embark.

“All European and American drivers stop for pedestrians. They’re not at all in a hurry. They never take over the road,” Mr. Yan notes. His wife adds, “And Europeans don’t save money. Their social security system is guaranteed.”

V

From the churning gossip on the ship, two love stories have emerged.

The first concerns Ms. Summer and an Italian pianist named Luciano. A little girl on the ship swore to me that she saw them holding hands on the sunlit deck, but the man and woman themselves vow that no such thing happened.

Summer is 52 and from Sichuan. Her hair is curly, and a smile is always on her face. “How poetic, to cross the globe at leisure on a boat.” She crinkles her eyes as she gently draws a circle in the sky with her finger.

In 1978 she was among the first batch of students to enter university after the reinstatement of the gaokao. When Hainan became independent from Guangdong in 1988, Summer abandoned the comfort of her monthly salary of 100 yuan ($27) and her housing allotment and joined her boyfriend and 200,000 college students in their migration to the new island province to seek their fortune. She and her boyfriend made a pact: “until death, never look back.”

Summer witnessed Hainan’s frenzied land speculation in the 90s. Even the old women selling betel in the street could produce a red diagram (the official document for a building lot), hawking parcels of land that had changed hands five or six times and were now worth millions. Whenever someone came to look at land, they would take that person to the shore, gesture towards the open sea, and say, “This is where they will reclaim the land.”

At last Hainan’s real estate bubble burst. Some people made money, but most left the island in dejection. Summer was among the 30,000 university graduates who stayed in Hainan. In 1991, she insisted on buying her husband’s original issue stock in a construction company. Her foresight was repaid. Two years later, the company went public, and the several tens of thousands of yuan Summer had invested grew to several hundred thousand. Another two years on, Summer used her first pot of money to invest in a real estate project. In 2006, Summer and her husband divorced, and she used the money earned from real estate to begin investing in organic farming.

“After two weeks on the ship, I got really fidgety,” says Summer. The Sichuanese prefer strong flavors, and the food on the ship, while adjusted to the Chinese palate, is still rather insipid. There was nothing to do, especially during that endless week on the open sea. It was hard to endure. Summer decided to take the Italian course offered on the ship, and after class she would find Luciano to practice what she had just learned.

Luciano is from Rome. He is about 60, with a head of silver hair. When he plays piano at the Dolce Vita bar, he talks and sings. The rhythm of the songs is upbeat, and when Luciano sings he always turns that statuesque face of his to smile on the crowd. He has countless fans.

“Summer picked up Italian quickly. She’s very smart,” says Luciano. “I like chatting with Chinese people. There are always genuine.” Luciano showed Summer videos of his earlier performances, and has plans to learn Chinese songs from her. Summer reviews her new Italian vocabulary with him. During breaks in his performances, the two sit on the sofa and chat.

But the other love story is a small tragedy.

On March 1, the very day the ship embarked, Yuan Ye bumped into the Sicilian musician Mauruzio at the Dolce Vita bar. They took a picture together, as if they were already old friends. The two had never gone on a date, but they would always run into each other at tourist spots. “Perhaps he doesn’t know how much delight and sorrow he has brought me,” Yuan Ye says.

Though they couldn’t speak each other’s languages, the two slowly became familiar, and their photos became more intimate. They would sunbathe together on the deck and greet each other at parties. The attentive Italian would serve as Yuan Ye’s shopping guide onshore. Although she couldn’t understand him, he would fill a page with prices and brand names. Once, on the beach in Marmaris, Turkey, Yuan Ye made a motion of jumping into the ocean. Mauruzio was so startled he rushed to hold her.

Yuan Ye is among China’s first generation of real estate sales girls. In the mid-80s, selling houses was an embarrassing profession. “It showed you couldn’t get placed in a national work unit,” Yuan Ye says. In 2002 she moved into the real estate business. Yuan Ye married her former husband in 1983, at the age of 21. She was introduced by her boss. The two had known each other for less than a month and had only hit it off 48 hours prior to their marriage. They had never dated.

When the Atlantica reached Santorini, that tiny island covered in romantic blue and white houses on the azure Aegean Sea, Yuan Ye once again found Mauruzio. Santorini’s hillsides are filled with yellow flowers. The two wandered the hills and took photos. The romantic Italian sang “Everybody’s Changing” to her and gathered a bouquet.

But that was the last time they saw each other. On April Fool’s Day, Yuan Ye sat alone in the cafe. Mauruzio had disembarked in Sicily. Because of the language difference, Yuan Ye didn’t even know if he had said goodbye. But Mauruzio left her what looked like an Internet username. I help her search Facebook, WhatsApp, Skype, and other networks Westerners use, but we can’t find him. I ask every musician on the ship I can find, but since Mauruzio didn’t have a contract with the cruise company, no one has his contact information.

“That bouquet is still in my room. We live on the same planet, but I may never see him again,” Yuan Ye muses bitterly.

VI

On the morning of April 2, the Costa Atlantica finally arrives at a harbor near Rome. We join a tour heading downtown. Most of the people on the bus are elderly. One uncle wearing a peaked cap records the scenery and tour guide’s lecture with a video camera.

One lady, a Taiwanese property developer around 50 to 60 years old, occupies two seats. She wears a bright red wool cap and the bathrobe from her room. “I’m old, and it’s freezing,” she says. When the tour guide tries to put someone next to her, she blocks the seat with her hand and says, “Have them cram in with someone else. I’m old and don’t want to be crowded.”

The guide starts to introduce Rome’s ancient architecture. The Taiwanese lady says to a few mainlanders nearby, “I don’t care about going to see all these old buildings. They’re a waste of time. We’d be better off shopping.” Further down the road, she starts talking to a few other guests about how to appreciate lobsters according to terroir.

“Do you have any other questions about Rome?” asks the guide. The bus is completely silent. After a moment, a Chinese aunt sitting near the back asks, “Are housing costs high?” Hearing the guide’s reply, she thinks they’re not so bad. A while later, she asks, “How’s the social security system?”

As we approach our destination, the tour guide tells everyone we will get off here and meet again in five hours. The man in the peaked cap is upset. He turns off his video camera and fumes, “I can’t speak English. How can you throw us out here?” The guide hurriedly explains, “The onshore tour you purchased is self-guided. There’s another fully guided tour for people who can’t speak English.”

“Then take us to see the sights! Or else you won’t have any business.” An old man next to the man in the peaked cap yells. Several older men clammer after him, “Yes, we don’t know the way.” The whole bus erupts in chaos, and several of the old men get excited. The voice of the man in the peaked cap rises, his face flushing red.

All of a sudden the Taiwanese businesswoman stands up and throws a jumble of English and Chinese names at the young Italian guide. “Hermès, Kelisiting, LV, Xuenai’er, Prada…?” The guide is perplexed. The Taiwanese women quickly turns to the Chinese guide and asked, “Help me ask her where I can buy brands from local designers? They must be from local designers.”

The younger passengers do nothing to hide their disdain for the whole scene. Mr. Y, a Beijinger sitting beside me, flips the bird towards the older group. The last time he showed his middle finger to someone, he and his target nearly came to blows. “Come over here! I’m not afraid of them!” He shouts at the top of his lungs. Mr. Y was born in the late 60s, but on this trip, that makes him relatively youthful.

The Chinese guide begins to compare Rome to our next destination, Barcelona. An older man grumbles, “You haven’t finished with Rome and you’re already moving on to Barcelona.” A middle-aged man two rows ahead cranes his neck back and retorts, “If you think you’re so hot, why don’t you just buy Rome then?” The old man says no more.

“Young people ought to be on this cruise,” says Mr. Y. “They should see the world. Only they are China’s hope for the future. It’s too bad they’re all stuck in the cities as mortgage slaves.” He tears up the map of Rome in his hands, gives the older folks a ruthless glance, then puts in his earbuds and turns to look out the window.

VII

The night before I leave the ship, I run into Liao Yaozong at the Winter Garden on the third deck. He tells me that he had also decided to disembark before the cruise leaves Europe. “I’m anxious to get back and make money,” he says, half-jokingly.

After he gets back to China, Liao wants to change professions. “The times have changed,” he says, looking out the window at the dark expanse of the ocean. When he first entered the real estate industry, Chinese were particularly respectful of “rich people,” even if they wore sneakers with suits or colorful nylon pants with leather shoes. But now, Chinese people call those with more money than they know what to do with tuhao, the nouveau riche. Liao fears nothing more than this label.

“I don’t want my daughter to one day say to people, ‘My dad is one of those nightclub owners.'” In order to avoid this designation, he bought a Leica instead of a “rifle” camera, and a British-style Buckingham camera bag to go with it. He doesn’t buy Mercedes or BMW, and he reads Ouyang Shanzun and Wang Dulu.

“The real estate business is too boorish. It’s not something to do your entire life.” Liao plans to get into culture and education–vinyl clubs, art salons, horsemanship, and other quality endeavors. “For the Europeans, it takes three generations to produce a noble. We need to hurry up on that,” he adds.

On April 4 the ship arrives in Barcelona. I have spent a week onboard. During those seven days, I conducted an experiment. I asked the same question to every person I met: “What do you think China’s future will be like?” Their answers were astoundingly similar, including Liao Yaozong’s. He told me, “I’ve never thought about this before. I feel that this isn’t a question for me to think about. Thinking about it wouldn’t be of any use anyway.”

I disembark at noon. The fickle Mediterranean weather suddenly turns to a light rain. Standing at the port of Barcelona, I look back at the gigantic letter “C” on the Costa Atlantica’s bright yellow exhaust chimney. Carrying over 600 Chinese passengers on the journey of their dreams, the ship sets sail from the spring toward the summer.

Over the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday, some of these people are traveling as far as Hawaii for life-coaching classes or chilling out in a Buddhism-themed hotel in Putuo Mountain, a pilgrimage site near Shanghai. They are choosing tea ceremonies and vegetarian meals over partying and bargain hunting,

“We live in a society that is devoid of faith,” said Zheng Zhaoli, vice dean at the School of Philosophy at Fudan University. “Chinese people don’t have their own religion, that’s why many dedicate their pursuits to study of philosophy and literature.

[…] China has the world’s biggest population of atheists. Yet half of Chinese people who have more than $1 million in assets practice some sort of religion, with 30% claiming they are Buddhist, followed by Christians (7%), and Muslims (3%), according to a report by Hurun, which tracks Chinese wealth. For those with $5 million in assets, 60% say they are religious, even though they don’t necessarily practice strictly. [Source]

A growing list of new rules requires government officials to downshift their lifestyles by reducing public money spent on cigarettes, banquets, cars and travel, and fully eliminating perks like fireworks and private-jet travel. Tallying up edicts from the Communist Party’s internal corruption watchdog, more than a dozen broad categories of behavior, from entertainment to funerals, are being monitored for profligate spending.

[…] An unexpected peak-season rut for China’s calendar business illustrates how broadly a corruption crackdown has challenged business as usual. Private clubs are shutting down following official criticism they are extravagant; officials attend meetings without watches and belts to avoid suspicion they have ill-gotten wealth; military officers, once able to ride high in imported SUVs, were recently told to drive only domestically made vehicles.

[…] Calendar seller Mr. Li pointed to his stock and expressed frustration that he might only be able to salvage cardboard for recycling. But, he said he can’t completely disagree with the new policy: “In the long run, this is good because it’s a waste of money.” [Source]

It’s an industry response to pain, Mr. Chen said in comments reported by China Business News and confirmed to The Wall Street Journal by one of his deputies.

Amid China’s anti-extravagance sweep, hotels are downgrading themselves to score political points – and win back business from politicians. A year ago this week, President and Communist Party Chairman Xi Jinping declared war on “undesirable practices” by officials that he said risked creating an “invisible wall that separates the party from the people.”

[…] Downgrading a hotel isn’t quite so straightforward, according to the government agency that hands out the stars, the China Tourist Hotel Association.

“There’s no such thing as ‘downgrading stars,’” said a woman in the rating department who declined to be named. She explained that if five-star properties choose to change their ratings, they will be considered unrated. [Source]

The Telegraph’s Malcolm Moore suggested that Chen’s story was concocted to show the campaign biting hard:

We think the story of Chinese 5-star hotels downgrading themselves to 4-stars is entirely untrue. Pre-CNY propaganda.

“The government will work properly or even much better if [we] cut half of the staff members and offices of the county government,” Li Changjin, who described himself as working as a civil servant for 34 years, said.

“Generally, the work for the government servants is too easy… and [you] can hardly find out someone who work at their full capacities for eight hours a day”, he wrote.

[…] Li called for a policy regulating the income of government servants, as the ban on bribes, which prohibits public servants from accepting gifts and prizes especially before the Chinese New Year, has affected the wages of the majority of lower-level government servants in the middle and western areas. [Source]

[New York Times Company president and CEO Mark] Thompson said in an interview with Reuters on Tuesday that the website, which was launched in a beta version in June 2012, got off to an encouraging start.

“The fact that we can’t be seen officially inside China means the revenue is not as large as we would have wished it to have been,” he said.

“If it’s a loss-making operation, they are all under constant review.”

[…] Thompson said that Chinese officials had given no indication that the main site was going to be unblocked anytime soon. [Source]

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/11/new-york-times-chinese-site-review/feed/0Li Xiaolin and the Amazing Chipmunk-Colored Dreamcoathttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/10/li-xiaolin-amazing-chipmunk-colored-dreamcoat/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/10/li-xiaolin-amazing-chipmunk-colored-dreamcoat/#commentsWed, 30 Oct 2013 06:25:03 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=164716Not for the first time, princeling businesswoman Li Xiaolin has come under fire for her choice of attire. From Laurie Burkitt and Lilian Lin at China Real Time:

Li Xiaolin, the chairwoman of state-run electricity giant China Power International Development Ltd. and daughter of former premier Li Peng, is coming under fire on China’s social networking sites after appearing in a striped, furry-looking trench coat on Monday at the opening ceremony of the 11th National Women’s Congress, a legislative meeting aimed at improving women’s status in China.

Users of China’s Twitter-like social-media site Sina Weibo attacked Ms. Li for her luxury look. “Such an obvious show-off of wealth,” said Zhang Xinke, a fashion designer, on his verified Weibo account. Much of the criticism came from the perception that Ms. Li’s coat was fur. Animal rights groups circulated videos of animal killings next to Ms. Li’s photos.

China Real Time has been unable to verify the brand of Ms. Li’s coat. A spokesman for China Power International Development said, when asked the price and brand, that the coat is “very ordinary.” He declined to provide the price and the brand but said that the material is fabric with leopard print, not fur. [Source]

Leopard was not the animal that sprang immediately to some observers’ minds, however. Via Patrick Boehler:

“People said it was impossible to change China, but the evidence we are now getting says consumption of shark fin soup in China is down by 50 to 70 percent in the last two years,” said Peter Knights, executive director of WildAid, a San Francisco-based group that has promoted awareness about the shark trade. The drop is also reflected in government and industry statistics.

“It is a myth that people in Asia don’t care about wildlife,” Knights said. “Consumption is based on ignorance rather than malice. ”

[…] Buoyed by the results of the shark fin campaign, conservationists are now turning their attention to the trade in ivory and rhino horn. Some 25,000 elephants were poached last year, and 668 rhinos killed in South Africa alone, with China the largest market for ivory, and the second largest for rhino horn behind Vietnam.

[… A]ttitudes can change, and the Chinese government is not intransigent. A major investor in Africa, it does not want to be seen as the reason for widespread insecurity caused by poaching. In September, it started sending text messages to every Chinese cellphone user who touched down in Kenya, warning them to “not carry illegal ivory, rhino horn or any other wildlife.“ [Source]

“They go through a different process from what you’d see in the U.S.,” Nigel Harris, Ford Asia Pacific’s vice president of sales & service, said by phone. “Not only are they first-time car buyers, but their family hasn’t had the experience either.”

[…] At a Ford Motor Co. (F) showroom in Shanghai’s Pudong district, there’s an in-house manicurist and shoe-shiner. Singers perform at barbecues for customers, and periodically the dealer holds drawings for gifts such as iPads and TVs.

[…] The three-story Mercedes-Benz dealership in Shanghai’s Putuo district has a 12-seat theater (often showing movies that feature Mercedes vehicles), a cigar room for repeat customers, a library, a fitness center, and a game room that includes pool tables and driving games. At lunch, there’s a buffet with five different meat and vegetable dishes, and a full-time tea artist brews various types of Chinese tea. [Source]

Before being published, all pictures are examined not only by the newspaper’s editors, but also by the local government’s public relations office. Several photographers from Party-affiliated papers told the EO of guidelines they’ve informally learned or been given directly by local governments regarding how they should and shouldn’t photograph leaders. The following is a list of some of those key points and taboos.

[…] Photos in the following cases are banned from public release since they’ve drawn so much negative attention.

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/08/how-to-photograph-a-chinese-official/feed/0Bikes for Bonuses as China’s Wealthy Reminiscehttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2012/12/bikes-for-bonuses-as-chinas-wealthy-reminisce/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2012/12/bikes-for-bonuses-as-chinas-wealthy-reminisce/#commentsMon, 24 Dec 2012 22:32:01 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=148864Once one of four symbols of modern living in China, alongside wristwatches, sewing machines and radios, the bicycle’s position as a status symbol took a battering with the advent of widespread car ownership. Its fall from grace was illustrated in 2010 by dating show contestant Ma Nuo’s infamous words to an unemployed suitor: “I’d rather cry in a BMW than laugh on the back of [your] bicycle.” But, as Reuters reports, high-end bikes have become prestigious once again as nostalgia-infused symbols of health and wealth.

Yu Yiqun, the creative director at an advertising company in the Chinese capital, cycles to work on his favorite bike – a 100,000 yuan ($16,000) hand-made Alex Moulton.

“It might be the only one in Beijing. It’s like the Rolls-Royce of bicycles. Very classical, purely hand-made,” said the 40-year-old Yu, who has about 35 high-end bikes.

“I remember my father used to ride me to the city in the winter – about 40 km and minus 30 degrees centigrade. Back then, it was a means of transport that fulfilled your dream of travelling afar, which was relatively cheap but required brawn.”

[…] “Demand for mainstream luxury items such as premium cars, watches has come to a point of saturation. High-income groups now turn to high-end bikes to show off the uniqueness in taste and healthy lifestyle,” said Zhou Jiannong, general manager of Rbike Networks Ltd in China.

Yeoh warns that any sort of direct play requires research, but he has some handy tips. He says investors should look at what the Chinese will want to buy during the next decade. He also prefers established Western companies with a healthy exposure to China’s growth, notably luxury-goods companies.

”Generally, you would think that the corporate governance would be better for Western companies,” he says. ”There’s going to be more disclosure, and it’s a lot easier to understand a luxury-goods company generally than some sort of Chinese internet company.

[…] The downside is that the appeal of luxury brands can be fickle, and the saturation of brands could render them unpopular. ”[Shanghai women] always pride themselves as the most sophisticated and elegant and most open to the West,” Yeoh says. ”When they see the mistresses of the Shanxi coalminers wearing Louis Vuitton … they need to be wearing something else.”

It comes as no surprise to anyone following global markets that China is slowing down, along with most of the global economy. Economic indicators for August revealed a deceleration in industrial production, a tick down in nominal fixed investment, and a negligible increase in nominal retail sales (below inflation); imports for consumption dropped 7.5% in August, indicating a significant weakening in domestic demand, Nomura’s economic research team explained.

China’s explosive growth, along with the rest of Asia and many of the so-called emerging markets around the world, helped luxury brands buck the trend and perform well despite the troubles facing the global economy. Burberry, for example, was up 10.6% to Monday’s close in 2012, before disclosing its latest sales numbers.

On Tuesday, the iconic British brand revealed that its retail sales at constant exchange rates grew only 6% in the ten weeks to September 8. More troubling, same-store sales showed no growth, meaning all of the 6% they saw came from new space. “Burberry currently expects adjusted profit before tax for the twelve months to 31 March 2013 to be around the lower end of market expectations,” read the release; the FT put those expectations between £407 and £455 million ($653 million and $730 million).

Burberry Chief Financial Officer Stacey Cartwright said typical gift giving has slowed following new scrutiny of public displays of wealth.

“Clearly that’s having an impact,” Ms. Cartwright said in an interview Tuesday. “We called out in the last release the fact that the gift giving part of the business [in China] had slowed very significantly. Clearly there’s the changing of the guard coming very shortly, and we’ll have to see what comes after that.”

Adrian Cheng, chief executive of Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group Ltd., 1929.HK +0.52% one of the world’s largest jewelry companies, cited similar concerns in an interview, saying uncertainty surrounding a coming political leadership transition expected to begin this fall has thrown a pall over the attitudes of some consumers. Demand will return “when there’s more clarity,” he said.

There is no shortage of cases. In recent days one official, Yang Dacai, faced scrutiny online for obtaining watches worth tens of thousands of pounds on a salary estimated at about £1,000 a month. That was followed by reports this week that the victim of a fatal Ferrari crash in March had been the son of one of President Hu Jintao’s key allies.

“Cases like the Ferrari and Yang cases hurts the regime’s legitimacy terribly,” said Xiaobo Lu, an expert on corruption at Columbia University. “The government has a huge challenge with the ‘trust deficit’.”

At best, such images highlight the growing gulf between China’s rich and poor, and the extent to which officials and their families appear to be aligned with the winners.

“I like luxury goods; I love to consume,” he says. “I have money; I gotta spend it.” He is wearing Ferragamo shoes, an Armani polo, and Kiton pants. The wallet is from Bottega Veneta, the socks from Prada. The underwear? He says I have to accompany him to the hot springs to find out, but he assures me that they cost more than 800 yuan, or $125.

“We all used to wear plastic slippers,” a young man named Wu Ruiqi says while sipping Champagne. “There wasn’t fashion before. Everyone wore the same thing. Now there are two kinds of shoppers: fashion-forward, and clichéd customers who all buy whatever brand just for the logo, like a swarm of bees.”

“I don’t have any other hobbies,” she says. “My only hobby is shopping.” She is wearing a white-lace dress and a diamond Dior monogram necklace, the same one that a girl who walked out of Chanel a few minutes before her was wearing. “Beijing girls, they all buy the same luxury items,” she says. “It doesn’t matter if it takes a month’s worth of salary. Chinese people are blind followers. Some people say they hate rich people, but it’s just sour grapes. If they had money they would buy it too.“

The article also includes an illustrated guide to fashion jargon, from 暴发户 to 自拍.

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2012/08/scenes-from-chinas-consumerist-revolution/feed/0The Stylish Side of Chinahttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2012/07/the-stylish-side-china/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2012/07/the-stylish-side-china/#commentsWed, 25 Jul 2012 02:07:57 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=140478Although some analysts are worried about a slowdown in China’s economy, including the luxury industry, some indicators tell a different story. As huge numbers of people, white-collar women in typical, have just entered the middle class, a keen desire for fashion products props up the high-end consumption market. From New York Times:

Many Chinese women will spend far more of their income than their Western counterparts on these magazines and the products featured inside them. According to a 2011 study conducted by Bain & Company, mainland China ranked sixth in the world for spending on luxury goods ranked by country. In 2010, it was a $17.7 billion market. Louis Vuitton, Chanel and Gucci remain the most desired luxury brands.

[…] Lena Yang, general manager of Hearst Magazines China, who oversees nine publications including Elle and Marie Claire, says that the typical reader of Hearst Magazines in China is a 29.5-year-old woman who is more likely to be single than married. She has an average income of about $1,431 a month and spends $938 a season on luxury watches, $982 on handbags and shoes and $1,066 on clothes.

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2012/07/the-stylish-side-china/feed/1For Leaders, Fear at the Top?http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2012/05/for-leaders-fear-at-the-top/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2012/05/for-leaders-fear-at-the-top/#commentsTue, 22 May 2012 05:20:39 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=136621In a New York Times Opinion, Harvard’s Roderick MacFarquhar writes that the Bo Xilai scandal – and the revelations about the wealth and lifestyle of his family and the families of other “princelings” – has suggested an underlying fear among China’s leadership about the country’s future:

This may seem strange, given that the Chinese have propelled their country into the top ranks of global economic powerhouses over the past 30 years. There are those who predict a hard landing for an overheated economy — where growth has already slowed — but the acquisition of wealth is better understood not just as an economic cushion, or as pure greed, but as a political hedge.

China’s Communist leaders cling to Deng Xiaoping’s belief that their continuance in power will depend on economic progress. But even in China, a mandate based on competence can crumble in hard times. So globalizing one’s assets — transferring money and educating one’s children overseas — makes sense as a hedge against risk. (At least $120 billion has been illegally transferred abroad since the mid-1990s, according to one official estimate.)

…

Today, the party’s 80 million members are still powerful, but most join the party for career advancement, not idealism. Every day, there are some 500 protests, demonstrations or riots against corrupt or dictatorial local party authorities, often put down by force. The harsh treatment that prompted the blind human-rights advocate Chen Guangcheng to seek American protection is only one of the most notorious cases. The volatile society unleashed against the state by Mao almost 50 years ago bubbles like a caldron. Stories about the wealth amassed by relatives of party leaders like Mr. Bo, who have used their family connections to take control of vast sectors of the economy, will persuade even loyal citizens that the rot reaches to the very top.

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2012/05/for-leaders-fear-at-the-top/feed/0Titanic Replica to be Made In Chinahttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2012/05/titanic-replica-to-be-made-in-china/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2012/05/titanic-replica-to-be-made-in-china/#commentsTue, 01 May 2012 07:06:03 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=135569The recent 3D re-release of James Cameron’s Titanic has been an enormous success in China, despite controversy over a prudishly deleted scene and some of the ensuingpress coverage. The film took $67 million at the Chinese box office in its opening weekend, almost four times as much as in the US. Now, an Australian mining tycoon has announced plans for a full-scale replica of the ship, to be built in a state-owned Nanjing shipyard and possibly escorted by Chinese naval vessels. From AFP:

“It will be every bit as luxurious as the original Titanic but of course it will have state-of-the-art 21st century technology and the latest navigation and safety systems,” [Clive] Palmer said in a statement.

“Titanic II will sail in the northern hemisphere and her maiden voyage from England to North America is scheduled for late 2016.”

He added that he had invited the Chinese navy to escort the Titanic II to New York ….

His decision to commission a Chinese shipbuilding yard, which will also construct other luxury liners for the tycoon, reinforces his ties to the country, which is a key buyer of his coal and iron ore.

“Of course, it will sink if you put a hole in it,” Palmer said at a press conference. “It is going to be designed so it won’t sink. But, of course, if you are superstitious like you are, you never know what could happen.”